


The Sound Of A Smile

by 74days



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Skinny Steve, Wrong Number AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 06:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21231632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/74days/pseuds/74days
Summary: Steve gets a number wrong... or, depending on how you look at it - Steve gets a wrong number right.





	The Sound Of A Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naminia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naminia/gifts).

Steven picked up the phone and dialed the number on the scrap of paper he found at the bottom of his bag. He remember scribbling it down while waiting at a red light and now, finally home, he had a chance to call. 

After three rings, it connected. “Hello?” A very confused voice said on the other side. Soft, masculine and with a little hint of an accent around the edges. 

“Listen here.” Steve said, pulling in a deep breath. “I don’t know where you hire your drivers, but who ever was driving your truck with badge 1925 needs to be fired!” Steve snapped. “I was on my bike - in the bike lane! - when he clipped me. He didn’t even stop to check if I was okay, and then he ran a red light and almost killed the lady pushing a stroller over the crossing.”

“I, uh-”

“I know it’s not your fault.” Steve said, feeling a little guilty about coming on the phone and yelling right away, but he was  ** _so _ ** mad. Not about getting clipped - he’d been cycling in New York for longer than he could remember and had the scars to prove it, but the woman had been so distressed. “But the kid fell out of the stroller - in the middle of the walkway! I had to call an ambulance. He didn’t even stop!” 

He paused for breath, feeling his chest rise and fall as he tried to get his emotions, and his wheezing - under control. 

“Um, I think you have the wrong number?” The voice on the other side said when it was clear that Steve wasn’t going to cut him off again. “I don’t work for a company with trucks.” 

Steve paused. He actually stopped breathing for a few seconds as he realised he’d just half yelled at a completely innocent person. “Oh god.” He whispered. “Oh I’m so, so sorry! I thought I had the number on the truck down correctly.”

“It’s okay.” The voice said. “Maybe you just got a couple of the numbers mixed up?” A pause. “Did you get the name of the company on the truck or just the number?”

“Just the number.” Steve mumbled. He was sure he was fire-engine red. “I’m honestly so sorry. I never would have yelled, I was just so mad! And it wasn’t even anything to do with you!”

“It’s fine. When did it happen? Today?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah - in Bushwick. Between Wilson and Gates.” He paused. “I really am sorry - it’s just I don’t really cope well when little kids are hurt, you know?”

He could hear tapping on the other side of the line, fast, frantic. “Yeah, I get that. I was in a bad crash a few years ago.” More tapping. Steve wondered when it would be polite to end the call. “Guy ran a red light.”

Steve made a small, commiserating noise. He wasn’t really sure what he should say to that at-

“You the blond guy on the push bike?” The man on the other side of the phone said, cutting Steves line of thought off. 

“Huh?”

“You the blond guy on the push bike?” The man said, again. “On Wilson?”

Steve wasn’t sure why, but he looked out of the window. “Can you see me?” He asked, feeling exposed. 

“I mean, I can see the CCTV footage from this morning.” The man said, after a second. “I’m good with computers.” 

Steve blinked. He wasn’t sure what to say to that - his laptop was more like a brick with a screen and he still struggled to type with more than two fingers. The idea that someone would be able to… hack?... into the CCTV didn’t seem like something real people could do. That kind of thing was relegated to movies and unrealistic cop shows on the CW. 

“I’ve got a good shot of the truck here.” The man said while Steve was still trying to work out how he was talking to some kind of cyber criminal. “Do you want me to email it to you, or what?”

“You have my email?” Steve said, blinking in shock. The laugh on the other side of the line was warm. 

“No.I was going to ask you for it. I’m good, tiny blond man, but I’m not that good. If you don’t want to give it out, I can just read the number off the truck? You got two of the numbers mixed up when you wrote it down. The four and the eight are the other way around. Company is called Hammer Tech.” He sounded slightly amused, like Steve had said something funny. Steve wasn’t sure what he’d said to get a reaction like that. He’d been so rude. 

“Oh, I have a notepad here.” Steve said, scrambling for the pencil he kept by the phone, for just this situation. 

“Of course you do.” The warm voice said. Steve was almost sure he could hear a smirk on the other end of the phone. 

“I’m not a hipster.” Steve said. It was one of the things that Sam always teased him about - his old man phone, his little notepad. His bike and his glasses. 

“I didn’t say you were.” The man said, sounding even more amused. “But if the slouchy beanie fits…”

“Jerk.” Steve muttered, but his tone was all wrong, too soft, too much like he was smiling. 

“Punk.” The man on the line said, and Steve could hear his smile. “Write this down.” 

* * *

Hammer Tech were already aware of the issue when Steve called. Apparently someone had already sent a file of the event to Twitter and Facebook and it was getting traction. The fact that Steve was the ‘poor boy’ who’d been knocked off his bike by the driver meant something to the person on the other side of the phone, who apologised profusely and took all of his details to arrange some kind of compensation for his trouble. Steve doubted that he’d ever hear anything back, but he was pretty sure that the image of the crying little baby all over the internet ensured that they, at least, would get something. 

* * *

It was weird. Cycling down the street, Steve was more aware of the cameras all around him. He found himself wondering if the man on the other side of the phone was watching him, although he knew that it wasn’t the case - couldn’t be the case - but it still made him feel watched. 

* * *

The ‘compensation’ for his accident wasn’t exactly what he was expecting - three days after he called Hammer Tech, a package arrived on his doorstep. It contained a brand new Hammer Tech phone, laptop, a voucher for $50 that could be spent in the HT clothing store, and a signed glossy photograph of Justin Hammer. Steve recycled the photograph and gave the voucher to the teenage boy that lived next door. Peter was thrilled and the next time Steve saw him he was wearing a new cool looking jacket, and gave him the thumbs up.

The phone was a bit of a nightmare to use, it was pre-loaded with apps and wasn’t compatible with any of the Stark stuff that Steve already had, but it had been a long time since he’d been able to afford a new phone, so he shrugged and got used to the laggy interface.

The laptop, though, was a nightmare. Steve struggled for two days before he tried to call the ‘helpdesk’ number. After two hours on the phone, getting passed from one person to the other, and no one actually knowing how to fix the issue, Steve hung up. 

Sitting on the table beside the old rotary phone that belonged to his mother, was a scrap of paper that he kept meaning to throw out and never quite managed to get around it. Looking at the laptop - which somehow managed to be worse than his old brick-with-a-screen - he made up his mind. 

“Uh, hi?” The voice on the other side. 

“Hi.” Steve said, after taking a breath. “I don’t think you remember me.”

“Tiny blond Punk?” the man guessed after a beat. “Need me to correct more injustices in the world today?”

Steve snorted, before remembering that he was calling up for a favour. “I, uh, I got a new laptop.”

“Did your typewriter break?”

Steve shot a glance over the machine that sat on the bookshelf. “Was that a guess or…?”

“Holy shit, do you actually really have a typewriter?” The man laughed. “Because that’s hilarious.” 

“It belonged to my dad.” Steve said, after the guy stopped snorting of laughter down the line. “I don’t use it. I have a laptop.” He glared at the very high-tech lump sitting on the coffee table. “Well - kinda. I got a new one from Hammer Tech. They sent it to apologize for the whole, trying to kill me thing.”

The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. “Hammer Tech sent you a laptop to stop you from suing their ass off?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to sue.” Steve pointed out. “I was just angry that he hurt that kid.” 

“You should have taken them to court.” The man said, sounding confused. “They didn’t have a leg to stand on - they had footage all over the internet of what happened.” 

“I assume that was you, by the way.” Steve said.

The man made a scoffing sound down the line. “It wasn’t, actually. My plan was to hack into their shitty systems and get the driver fired, but my boss figured the bad PR would hurt them more.”

“Your boss?”

“Yeah.” The man said. “He saw me working on the CCTV footage and wanted to know what I was doing. He hates Hammer with a passion. He’ll be so pissed that you only got a laptop.”

Steve, who felt he needed to stick up for the poor girl on the phone he’d talked to, shook his head. “They sent me a phone too - and a voucher for some clothes.” 

“Don’t make it worse!” The man scoffed. “A shitty phone and a shittier laptop is not an apology.” 

“The phone has been okay.” Steve pointed out. “But the laptop is a nightmare. I’ve been talking to the help desk for hours.”

“And then you called me?” The smug tone was back. 

“Maybe I just wanted to hear your dulcet tones.” Steve shot back, before his brain kicked in and he realised that might be a little too flirty. 

“My dulcet tones, huh?” The voice on the line was still amused, but there was a lower timber now, like maybe he wouldn’t be too annoyed at Steve flirting with him. “Well now I gotta help you out.” He said, “You gonna offer up your name, Punk, or will I be stuck calling you tiny blond in my head through this whole call?”

Steve grinned. “Steve.” He offered. “And you? Because I’m just sitting here calling you a sarcastic Jerk.” 

A snort on the line made Steve grin from ear to ear. “Bucky.”

“Your mamma called you Bucky?” Steve asked, hoping that his tone was the right tone of teasing. He wasn’t good at flirting, and he wasn’t even sure if this ‘Bucky’ would want scrawny, sickly Steve Rogers flirting with him. 

“My mamma called me a lot of things,” Bucky said, “But naming me after the worlds most disappointing President was the worst.”

It took Steve a moment. “Buchanan?” 

“Well done, you’re a nerd  ** _and _ ** a hipster.” 

Steve found himself laughing. “I’m not a hipster. I’m broke. There’s a difference.” 

“Steve, poor don’t mean you gotta wear beanies and own a typewriter. Broke is beans an rice for every meal.” Bucky said, tone definitely teasing. “Now, you’d better tell me what’s wrong with your shitty laptop so I can get it fixed.” 

* * *

It took Bucky just under an hour to fix whatever was wrong with his laptop - wirelessly working on the screen as he chatted away to Steve. Looking at the lines of programming showing up on the screen gave Steve a headache, so Bucky told him to go get a drink, and then laughed himself silly when Steve admitted that he used a specific brand of loose tea. 

“Are teabags too mainstream?” He said, while Steve blushed and blustered his way through making the pot. “Please Steve, tell me it’s organic.”

“That’s not why I buy it!”

Buckys open, teasing laugh warmed Steve to his toes much faster than the hot cup in his hands. 

* * *

It was the ringing of his phone that jolted Steve out of his hyper focused state. He’d been working on the canvas for hours, trying to translate the swirling warmth in his gut into colours and shapes. The harsh chime of the phone jerked him back to reality. It took him a few seconds to realise that it was already starting to get dark outside. He hurried over to the phone, stubbing his toe on the couch as he moved, limbs just a little too stiff from standing at the easel all day. 

“Hello?” He said, hopping on one foot and trying not to swear. 

“So say a guy needed to get a cup of coffee from a place that wasn’t a soulless conglomerate in New York, where would he go?” 

Steve stopped hopping - standing on one foot for a moment too long and almost losing his balance. “Bucky?”

“The one and the same. My boss threatened to fire me if I didn’t go outside and get some fresh air, and I figured that a coffee shop would let me work on my laptop, but I also don’t like getting weird looks, so I thought of the only person I know who would for sure have some joints I could hit up.” His voice was teasing. “You know, someplace no one has ever heard about. Probably sells organic vegan tea.” 

“Are you sure you want my recommendation?” Steve shot back, grinning like an idiot. “I mean, you might stand out a little.”

There was a beat. “You know what, Steve? I think you might be right. So What I’d really need, was like a guy - a real hipster - who can buffer my obvious Starbucks drinking ass, into this secret underground coffee shop.” 

“It’s a little late for coffee, Buck.”

“Good point. Let me buy you dinner and then we can do the coffee thing another day.”

Steve blinked. There was no doubt that this was obviously… flirting. This was flirting. Steve was being flirted with by a guy he’d never met, a guy who could hack into street cameras for some schmuck who dialed the wrong number. A guy who knew what he looked like and still wanted to go out to dinner with him. 

“Or, if you’d rather, you could just tell me a coffee shop and we can leave it at that?” Bucky said, sounding a little less sure of himself. 

“No!” Steve said. “I think dinner is good, it’s good. Um, I would be, uh, yeah. Dinner?”

On the other end of the phone, Steve imagined that Bucky let out a breath. It would explain the blow of air against the receiver. “Tonight? I know a really good greasy spoon I think you’d like - it’s a mom and pop place.” 

* * *

When Steve hung up, he was grinning like an idiot and had a date. A real date. 

* * *

* * *

“It’s not that hipster.”

“Steve, there was a mime in the corner and people were just… okay… with that. It was the most hipster place I’ve ever been in my life.”

Steve rolled his eyes as he cleaned his paint brushes. “It wasn’t a mime. It was a spoken word poet.”

“Oh my god, Steven Grant Rogers. Please do not make this worse. You are killing your boyfriend.” Bucky scoffed. There was typing in the background. They’d grabbed an hour in the afternoon - Bucky insisted that they met up during his lunch break, more to make sure that Steve was eating something through the day than anything else. 

Steve found himself laughing. He never got bored of talking to Bucky, and he certainly never got bored of Bucky referring to himself as his boyfriend. 

“You should get back to work.” Steve grinned. “Not slacking off, talking to me. You’ll get fired.”

“Please. You know as well as I do Tony supports my shameless flirting. He’s over in the corner trying to look like he’s not taking notes.”

In the background, Steve could hear the indignant squawk from Buckys boss. “Get back to work, Buck.” Steve laughed. 

“I’m rolling my eyes at you.” Bucky said. “You can’t see it, but I am.”

“Goodbye, Buck.”

“See ya later Stevie.” Bucky said, sounding fond. “I’ll bring take-out home tonight, okay?”

“Sounds good. Love ya.”

“Love ya too, Punk.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Naminia for this request! I hope you like it - it's been a looooong time since I've done any Stucky and I forgot how much I love this pairing!


End file.
